2011 Recap and 2012 Goals

When the year started, I was coming off a high of reading 120 books in 2010 but looking forward to a year of remodeling and possibly moving and realized that there was no way that goal was achievable in the midst of all that so I scaled it back a bit and I'm happy that I was able to not only meet but surpass my original goal.  Admittedly there were some shorter novellas in there which I think had a lot to do with it but there were longer books as well so I think it all balances out.

I think my biggest achievement is that I read 40 new authors this year.  Had to race a bit at the end to get that in but I did and I'm happy I did it.  Some of them I loved (Ilona Andrews, Neil Gaiman, and Karen Marie Morning) and some I simply enjoyed for what they had to offer (Simon Green).  Some I learned a lot from (all the authors of the middle school history series and the autism books).  I can't look back at this year and find one book that I simply didn't enjoy on some level.  Not all were favorites by any means but all had something that could be enjoyed.  I think my least favorite was a toss-up between 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Watership Down.  Neither of them gripped me as much as I wanted them to and seemed to plod quite a bit.  I'd have a hard time picking a favorite tho as there were so many good ones to choose from, so I'm not going to.  

The only bummer is that I wasn't able to complete the page count I had set-up for myself but it was fairly high and my average page count for books was down from the previous year.  This next year will see the end of our remodel and should finally include the move.  It should also include a 5+ day cruise during which I want to see just how many books I can burn through.  LOL

So my goals for 2012 are 110 books, 40 new authors, and 35,000 pages.  My other goal is to see if I can read more books than I end up adding to my to-read list.  Not sure that is actually possible as I get them for gifts, pick up new ones at used book sales and stores, grab what looks interesting from the Kindle freebies, read the ones my kids get that they love and want to share with me, plus get new ones in all my favorite series and by my favorite authors.  Right now according to Goodreads, I have 1,171 books on my to-read shelf.  Shelfari has it 1,164.  Not sure where the discrepancies  are and I'm too lazy to go try and figure it out.  It will be interesting to see where those numbers are in a year.